While 3GPP LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) allows operators to combine dedicated licensed and unlicensed (in particular 5 GHz ISM) bands, this 3GPP LAA approach only allows the joint operation of these 2 bands. As can be seen from FIG. 1, a dedicated licensed spectrum 118, e.g. according to LTE, is provided by a base station 120 to a user with user equipment 140 and an unlicensed spectrum 112, e.g. according to WiFi, is provided by a small cell 110 to the user equipment 140. Both spectra 112, 118 are combined via link aggregation 130. Control 114 and data 116 messages are exchanged between the base station 120 and the small cell 110. Currently, multiple LAA Stand-Alone approaches are defined, typically using the 5 GHz ISM band (or any other suitable unlicensed band or shared bands such as the 3.5 GHz US band) only—without combination with a dedicated licensed band. This makes LTE available for operator-independent users, such as private users deploying a private home network.
It may thus be desirable to provide a new technique for efficiently using radio resources including licensed and unlicensed frequency bands.